Chapter 25 Collarbone Bodhisattva

Buddhism has the theory of reincarnation. All encounters are reunions, and all departures are returns.

Growing up, Shi Lei only had one friend, who died on the way to school.

In the early morning of that day, the fog filled the air, and Shi Lei went to school with his friends. The green light on the sidewalk came on, and Shi Lei knelt down to tie his shoelaces. His friend went first. A Santana car illegally ran a red light and knocked down his friend, dragging him forward for more than ten meters.

Just then it stopped. The wheel of the car was pressing down on an arm, and there was a bright red blood stain on the road, which was shocking. The friend who was chatting and laughing just now suddenly died tragically in front of his eyes. Shi Lei was stunned and completely frightened.

The last thing his friend said to him was: I'll wait for you on the other side of the road.

From then on, Shi Lei had nightmares every night, dreaming of his friends' smiling faces again and again. He wanted to say: Stop, don't go.

From then on, crossing the road became his greatest fear. Cars were like tigers and seemed to rush over at any time, knock him down and chew him to pieces.

At that time, Shi Lei was only ten years old. Every time this child crossed the road, he had to follow the flow of people. If there was no one around, he would stand and wait in front of the zebra crossing on the sidewalk. Even if he was late for school, he would stop and never move forward.

He couldn't muster the courage to cross the street alone. Once, he followed a girl across the street. The green light on the sidewalk flashed several times and turned into a red light. The girl in front of him ran over quickly, leaving him in the middle of the road, and the heavy traffic passed him by.

surrounded.

The little child stood there and did not dare to move. He burst into tears because he was too frightened.

The girl looked back, ran back, held his hand, and led him through the street.

The girl was Die Wu, who was also ten years old that year. Die Wu and Shi Lei were neighbors. They went to the same elementary school but were not in the same class. Die Wu developed earlier, was very tall, and looked like a junior high school girl.

The street is like a river, and people are like duckweeds. This is how they get to know each other.

She didn't ask him why he was crying or what he was afraid of. She didn't say anything. She just held his hand and walked through a street and walked through the journey of life. This seemed to be a tacit understanding between two people who had been separated for many years and reunited.

When they first met, it felt like they had known each other for a hundred years. From then on, he walked with her every day to and from school.

In the morning, when the sun was rising and the sky was filled with colorful clouds, he would always quietly wait for her to cross the road together in front of a video store. He would hide behind a telephone pole, and then suddenly appear behind her.

At noon, his hand passed the iron guardrail of the park, and the roses in the flower bed were blooming quietly. He looked back to see if she had come.

In the afternoon, he stepped on her shadow, keeping a vague distance, walked across the zebra crossing, and walked through the Chu-He-Han boundary of life.

Shi Lei and Die Wu never talked and seemed to know each other until one cloudy day a year later, the rain wet the flowers in the roadside park, wet the hair and clothes of pedestrians, sparrows fell on the wires, and all the eaves

They were all dripping with water. The two children were walking in the rain. He coughed a few times, mustered up his courage, and asked cautiously, "What's your name?"

Diewu said, haha, I don’t know your name either!

He thought her name was beautiful and seemed to have a certain fragrance. He wrote her name on the paper, filled the page, and threw it away quietly. He felt that he had done something bad, so that when he saw her the next day, he

It was very unnatural, his heart was beating hard, and his face was red to the base of his ears. He didn't know why he was like this.

If you've ever had your first love, you know the full meaning of blushing!

The first love is so beautiful, and some words have fragrance, such as "first love". In the ignorant youth, if you don't understand the mood of liking someone, it is a love that is destined to be unspeakable. Until many years later, we are at the peak of the past

In the mountains, in the days gone forever, I suddenly remembered that a sigh still lingered in the summer of that summer, and a figure still stayed in the depths of the most beautiful time, never far away.

After graduating from elementary school, Shi Lei and Die Wu went to the same middle school. They had become accustomed to each other's existence. The two of them had gone through ups and downs and four seasons together. There were some rumors in the school that they were having an affair. The teacher said

He also talked to Die Wu and asked her why she went to and from school with Shi Lei every day. Die Wu didn't care at all, she said to the teacher, you don't understand. A bad boy spread a rumor and said that he saw Shi Lei and Die Wu kissing at the corner of the corridor.

Shi Lei had a fight with the boy, and then Shi Lei was beaten to tears. While resisting the bad boy's fist, he cried and defended his innocence with Die Wu.

Die Wu pulled Shi Lei away and stared at the boy who hit him. The boy looked provocative and was not afraid at all.

Die Wu made an astonishing move. She didn't move her fists or curse. She stepped forward and hugged the boy.

The boy was stunned and then frightened. He never dared to bully Shi Lei again. After all, it would be embarrassing for the reputation of puppy love to spread.

She fights hatred with hugs and resolves conflicts with compassion.

That night, it was said that there was a once-in-a-century meteor shower. Shi Lei and Die Wu did not go home after their evening self-study. The two of them sat under a cherry blossom tree in the park and looked up at the night sky, waiting for the meteor shower. The starry sky was bright, the gentle breeze blew, and the moonlight shone.

With the cherry blossoms flying all over the sky, it is simply a dreamlike fairy tale world.

However, the meteor shower never appeared, only the cherry blossoms fell one by one.

Diewu said: The meteor shower may be a lie.

Shi Lei said: Wait a minute, I seemed to have seen a shooting star just now.

Die Wu said: Then you should hurry up and make a wish.

Shi Lei said: I don't know...how to make a wish?

Diewu said: Think about it in your heart.

Shi Lei said: Don't you need to say it?

Diewu said: We can write down our wishes, put them in a bottle, and bury them here.

They dug a hole with branches under the cherry blossom tree, wrote their wishes on notes, put them in a bottle, and buried them. They didn't know what the other party wrote, but they naively thought that if a meteor shower appeared, they would be able to

Fulfill your wishes.

When they returned home, the streets were deserted at night. She held his hand and walked across the street.

They said goodbye with a smile at the entrance of an alley.

If she knew this was the moment of farewell, how could she let go of his hand and how could he smile and say goodbye.

Many years later, he realized that he had fallen in love with her when he was ten years old and would spend his whole life remembering her.

The next day, Shi Lei did not come to school, and he was not seen at familiar intersections. It was like this for several days. Diewu asked others and learned the news that Shi Lei would not be able to come to school in the future.

Diewu asked: Why?

The answer is - because he is disabled.

Although Shi Lei is fourteen years old, his body is still at the stage of a ten-year-old child. He suffers from dwarfism. Perhaps, from the day he met Die Wu, he has not grown up and everything has stayed on that busy street.

On the way, she turned around, walked over, and held his hand through the turbulent traffic.

His parents took Shi Lei to a hospital out of town for treatment. Several months passed, but the disease was not cured.

During that time, Diewu moved. After graduating from junior high school, she went to a technical secondary school. The word "disabled" was imprinted in Diewu's heart.

Many partings in life are just around the corner. The moment we turn around, we will say goodbye forever. The moment we look back, we are separated by thousands of rivers and mountains, and it is difficult to see each other again.

They separated from each other and never saw each other again. Ten years passed in a flash...

A lot happened to both Die Wu and Shi Lei in those years. Shi Lei's house was demolished. Die Wu once looked for Shi Lei, but could not find him. He was still the timid little boy who dared not cross the road. Die Wu has grown up.

Shi Lei learned to sew curtains from his mother. He almost never left home, because every time he appeared on the street, someone would call him "Little Turtle", "Dwarf", and "Wu Dalang".

We must admit that from the laughter caused by a comedian imitating a disabled person to the laughter of the audience, and from some curse words, discrimination against disabled people is widespread in this society.

A very ugly mute can become a very ugly middle-aged mute as long as he treats others kindly and faces the world with tolerance and understanding from the age of eighteen, and persists in this for thirty years.

Shi Lei was usually reticent and became taciturn. In order to help him adapt to this society, his parents found him a job as a hotel doorman. He stood in front of the door, wearing a somewhat funny red uniform, and said to every guest: Welcome

Come.

He sometimes thinks of Die Wu, who was his first love and, obviously, his last love.

Shi Lei sometimes takes the bus home. He can already cross the road alone, but on the bus, he needs courage to bear the strange looks of others. Everyone looks at this adult who looks like a child as if he is a monster.

Once, at a crossroads, Shi Lei felt a sense of déjà vu. He and Die Wu had walked here before.

A song called "River" came from the audio shop on the roadside:

This should be fate,

The footsteps of life accompany you step by step,

How many times have I cried tears of laughter,

It has merged into an ocean and been packed into a memory bag.

This should be called life,

It was too late to keep it and it changed again,

How many times have I laughed in tears, intertwined times,

In the dream, I thought about it again and couldn't help but sigh,

On the river of rushing life...

We will all meet the first person in our lives, accompany them for a while, and then disappear into time. After many years of looking back on that hazy love, we realize that it was a love that never officially started. Love never begins.

Where did it come from and whereabouts are unknown, just like those flowers, those water, those passers-by in the past.

Shi Lei lived a quiet life like this. After ten years, at that intersection where there was a lot of traffic and people, he suddenly saw a familiar figure through the glass of the bus. He recognized Diewu from the way he walked. He

His heartbeat suddenly accelerated. He wanted to shout to the driver to stop. He wanted to run in front of her. He wanted to pass through the cold and realistic world that separated them. His chest rose and fell due to shortness of breath. He was almost excited.

Crying... However, he did not get out of the car, but just sat there, quietly watching her walk out of sight, gradually go away, and disappear into the sea of ​​people.

Shi Lei said to himself: Is it her?

Maybe, I recognized the wrong person.

Perhaps, she can only accompany him for a certain period of time in the long river of life.

What would happen if they met? If they walked together, they would be regarded as mother and son by passers-by. He felt very inferior and would rather not see each other.
To be continued...